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Just out: a thoughtful paper on Taiwan’s regulatory response to the COVID-19 pandemic

I just came across this paper, posted April 21, 2020 on the Social Science Research Network: Lin, Ching-Fu; Wu, Chien-Huei; and Wu, Chuan-feng, “Reimagining the Administrative State in Times of Global Health Crisis: An Anatomy of Taiwan’s Regulatory Actions in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic” (March 28, 2020), 11 European Journal of Risk Regulation 1-21 (forthcoming), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3563054.

It’s a thoughtful paper that not only provides the details on Taiwan’s response to COVID-19 — something of interest in its own right — but also discusses with sensitivity the difficult dilemmas and trade-offs faced by any democratic society, particularly one that, like Taiwan, has a history of authoritarianism fresh in everyone’s minds. Thus, it is not just about Taiwan: “This paper therefore aims to offer an anatomy of Taiwan’s regulatory actions taken in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, assess their implications for risk regulation and governance in a global context and urge a reimagining of the administrative state in the — hopefully — post-COVID-19 world.”

[MAY 8, 2020 ADDITION: I just came across a short article on the details of China’s regulatory response: Weiwei Shen, Yiping Zhang, and Ding Zhang, “Simple Legislative Declaration and Complex Cultural Background: Review of China’s Legal Response to the COVID-19,” Michigan International Lawyer, vol. 31, no. 1 (Spring 2020), pp. 3-8, available here. Again, I had time only for a quick look, but it seems straightforward, factual, and well informed. I know that there are other more detailed articles on China’s regulatory response that are in the works and will shortly be published, and I’ll provide links when they come out.]